There’s a link I want to click on

Walking into the virginal space that will soon be christened “Chainlink Gallery” can be described as stepping onto a life-sized, blank canvas while the artist brushes you about the space, sketching out her intended masterpiece.

The gallery owner, LA native Cheryl Lee Scott, is a charismatic beam of energy, which radiates right through the door. The backroom of the gallery is adorned with vintage furniture, designed by the likes of Paul McCobb, mixed with quirky, vintage inspired pieces. The eye catcher in the room is a hot pink oversized chair that goes by the name “Hippo,” which was custom made by Dune in New York, and screams Instagram-worthy—#wishyouwerehere. Ironically enough, Instagram is one of the reasons Scott is opening her own gallery.

Moving into the perfect white cube that is the freshly painted exhibition room, she describes her dreams for the space as well as the story behind the name. She intends for Chainlink to be a space that brings people together, IRL.

“It feels like we’re all living the movie version of our own lives,” she says, describing the substitute social media has become for socializing. “We live in this virtual world where we don’t always touch each other on a physical level. I want a physical space to bring people together to appreciate art and design and to maybe come up with new collaborations, new projects, and new events.”

Her goal is to bring in artists and creatives who are currently under the radar and who have not been given the opportunity to show their work in a gallery before. “I’d like to invite other gallery owners to introduce them to newer artists.” She tells me.

The encouragement to give uncelebrated artists a place to put up their work was partly inspired by a few close friends of Scott, who motivated her to take her own photographs (which she says were not initially intended to be shown anywhere besides Instagram) out of the digital realm and into a real-time space.

The opening show at Chainlink will be Cheryl’s first time installing digital art/manipulated photographs, which were all shot and edited with her Iphone 5. Her work explores themes of identity, personal environments, and the distortion that is inherent to the medium.

Chainlink is in the Little Ethiopia district of Los Angeles at 1051 S. Fairfax. It opens its doors Friday November 13th—a day premeditated for good luck. Until then, you can find Cheryl Lee Scott @chainlinkps, in which the PS stands for “more to come.”